September 2: Buddhist Monks on Motorbikes

September
Wat Pah Chatanan

I thought of Uncle Erno today. I can’t imagine him here. The Uncle Erno I knew was a frail, thin, white-haired old man who loved his routine, who always sat in the same place on his old, soft, squashed green sofa making the armrests shiny from wear. The Uncle Erno I knew never went abroad. He was a pie-and-tinned-peas sort of old man, a half-pint-of-ale-in-a-glass-with-a-handle sort of an old man who always sat on the same bar stool, same time, same place. He would have hated this hot, sticky weather and the warm sticky rice. I really couldn’t imagine him here at all.

I’m settling into life at Chatanan a bit more now. I met Antony after the meal the other day and we went for a walk round the edge of the monastery. As ever, a monk accompanied us. This time it was Tikaro, a young, American monk with a holy-looking face that made him resemble a bald-headed Jesus in John Lennon glasses. Whenever Tikaro smiled, which wasn’t often the first morning I met him, he revealed two bright teeth which stuck out rather too far. Shy, slightly goofy, short-sighted Jesus. He rarely spoke and simply nodded when I said, “Hello,” to him.

They both still look very odd in their robes and shaved heads and it didn't make talking to them easy. I found it hard not to be distracted because I kept looking at their stubbly heads and eyebrows. They just look weird, very weird. I noticed that Tikaro's hair seemed to grow faster than Antony's and he was taking on the first stages of a hedgehog head. I wasn’t sure if hedgehogs had eyebrows, but those were looking pretty prickly too.

It gets very hot towards midday here, once the morning moisture has been frazzled by the sun. The air is dry and the sun unrelenting as it scorches down. Antony informed me that the monastery had received news of a military coup in Bangkok.

“It’s happened before,” he told me. “We don’t expect it to affect things here much.”

We did seem to be miles from anywhere and a world away from politics.

As we walked, Antony’s head quickly began to burn so I dug some sun-lotion out of my bag and handed it to him.

"You can't hand it to me, directly " he said, a little too abruptly.

“I beg your pardon?” I said a little too intolerantly.

The honeymoon of politeness was over and I knew he could sense me beginning to bristle. I could sense that he was wanting to say what he had to say calmly but was anticipating my response, which he knew of old, would not be calm. He knew me as only siblings know each other and I sighed impatiently, true to form, increasingly irritated by these seemingly needless rules.

Meanwhile, I could feel the shy Tikaro’s eyes flitting between me and Antony, monitoring and evaluating.

"It's the rules we have," explained Antony, twitching his lips nervously. "A monk can't take something out of your hand. It has to be offered formally."

The rice fields next to us rustled and shifted like uncomfortable passers-by witnessing a row.

"I am offering it to you," I insisted pedantically.

"I know," he said, the muscles in his cheek beginning to twitch and his mole getting agitated. "But you can't hand it to me. It has to be done formally. You have to place it on something and then I can pick it up." He was nervous, I could tell, and I, uncharitably, enjoyed watching it.

He crouched awkwardly and used a clean, un-ironed handkerchief as an offering cloth, spreading it out on the dusty road. I placed the bright yellow and white tube of sunscreen on it without saying a word and stood up, folded my arms impatiently and watched, knowing I was intimidating him.

After both of them had covered their bare, reddened scalps with Boots factor fifteen, the tube was placed carefully on the ground again, a cue for me to pick it up.

Antony tried to look calm and at ease with it all, but failed. His lips still twitched and his mole was starting to join in.

"You don't have to be so apologetic about it," I told him bitterly as we continued our walk.

"I'm not," he offered and then added in contradiction, "Apologetic about what?" And now his brow began to furrow. Believe me, a furrowed brow looks mighty peculiar without the eyebrows.

"All this,” I said. “The rules, the clothes, the bald head. You."

He paused thoughtfully before he said,

"I know it all seems strange, Benedict, but this is my life now and there are reasons for all the rules."

"I've said, you don't have to apologise,"

"I'm not apologising!" he finally shouted at me, provoked enough to raise his voice and his arms in insistence. Then, letting his arms drop, he slapped them down against his thighs.

“I’m not apologising for it, “ he repeated insistently but more quietly, clearly conscious that he might have sounded apologetic.

Antony sighed loudly and Tikaro flinched, ill at ease with the outburst. I don’t think a monk losing his temper is the done thing here and he was finding this brother-sister show a little difficult but was far too gracious to comment on it. We carried on walking.

"I'm so pleased you've come, " said Antony completely changing the subject, a tactic he often used to avoid confrontation and I rolled my eyes. At least some things had stayed the same.

"Especially now," he continued. "You must have meant a lot to Uncle Erno."

"We all meant a lot to him, “ I reminded him.

Dad used to make us write to Uncle Erno when we were younger and we never got out of the habit. It was a family thing. We all wrote to each other. It was what you did. What I really wanted to say to Antony was that I’d missed him. I’d missed my brother like hell. I’d loved getting his letters but I didn’t say it because it didn't seem the right moment. My anger at Antony grew.

Tikaro stayed a few steps behind us, politely silent throughout the walk. I got the sense that he was a little freaked out. Too many hearts on sleeves for one day.

"Why didn't you come back for the funeral?" I asked Antony, deliberately broaching a particular hotbed of fury. I knew that Antony knew that I was building up to blow and Antony knew I knew he knew. Pity the poor American didn’t.

"I couldn't get back," he said. "It wasn't felt appropriate for the monastery to fund the trip."

"I beg your pardon? It was Uncle Erno! Family funerals matter more when there’s not any family left!”

"It wasn't my decision," he said softly, resolved to my reaction.

"It never bloody is!" And I whacked a tall piece of grass, frustrated that responsibility always seemed to be passed on to someone else.
Rules, bloody rules.

I sighed, and stopped walking. It was hard to articulate what I was thinking. I waited for a few moments and then became flustered by my inability to say anything, knowing that Antony was looking straight at me, waiting, and that Tikaro was stood a few meters away, acting deaf but no doubt feeling mortified. This chaperone had drawn the short straw this morning.

“What did you mean by that, Benedict?”

I looked at him, straight in the face, his stupid bald head gleaming in the sunshine, his cheerful orange dress being swayed by a gentle, Isaan breeze and his beautiful big brother face looking as familiar to me as the day he built the red train track in our front room when I was three and he was four.

“I don’t know!” I shouted. “OK? I don’t bloody know what I meant!” and I stomped off up the track without a clue where I was heading, having never been there before.

I didn’t know at the time what I’d meant by it, but I do now. No one ever did anything on purpose. It was never their fault, never their decision, things just happened. Mum. Dad. Antony. It all just happened and there was never anyone to blame, nowhere to aim everything that was burning up inside me. I couldn’t put into words there and then just how angry I was that Antony had left me like everyone else and when he had an opportunity to come back, even for a funeral, he seemed happy to blame someone else for not doing so.

Antony and Tikaro followed me as I stomped my way through the dry Thai countryside, leaving a healthy gap between us for a few minutes until I’d calmed down.

We were walking past open rice fields which up here in The Isaan were desperately short of water. They were golden and dry, stretching out across the plain with a complex system of walkways connecting them which provided a route through to the other villages. There was only one tarmac road in this area, about a kilometre to the west of the monastery gates. The villages were linked by dusty tracks, winding their way through mile upon mile of rice fields, a flat expanse of golden waves, gently bristling in the breeze and stretching out forever. There were few trees except for the cluster that forms the small forest in which Wat Pah Chatanan sat. Unlike my mood, it was sublimely calm as we continued and only the sound of a few birds and the occasional whispering insect interrupted the quiet.

The Isaan’s beauty humbled me.

My anger at Antony was left unresolved as we continued to circle the monastery grounds and I was told more of its history by Antony and Tikaro. Wat Pah Chatanan was established more than twenty years ago as a place where western monks could come and practice in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. It was created by Ajahn Chah, a respected Abbot who had already set up a forest monastery close to Chatanan. He ordained western monks for the first time and his school of teaching was now one of the most highly respected in Thailand.

My brother had stumbled across a small temple practicing the Ajahn Chah’s teaching on an island in southern Thailand while he was backpacking. The infamous Ko Pha Ngan, island of the hippy drop-out, haven of the drug-seeking, spaced-out, all-night, full-moon-raver, is where my brother found the faith that changed his life. He stayed for a few months at a temple tucked away high in the forest, liked it and eventually ordained as a full 'Bhikkhu'. That was three and half years ago and now he thought he’d be a monk for the rest of his life.

"I don't have to, " he explained. "I can leave without any disgrace whenever I want. Most Thai men come into a monastery at some time in their lives. They'll come for a three month retreat or ordain for a year. Even the King has been a monk. It's very different from the Judeo-Christian tradition."

"You don’t say," I ventured sarcastically but Antony chose to ignore me. I wasn’t sure if he was uncomfortable with his new faith and all its rules and formalities, or whether he was just uncomfortable with me.

In the fields beside us some people were working. They were harvesting the rice, painstakingly picking it by hand, sheaf by sheaf. The sun was searing above and they were wrapped from head to foot to protect themselves from the rays and the dust. Their arms, legs and faces were swathed in layers of cloth and their faces were hidden under yellow straw hats and behind woollen balaclavas. A more uncomfortable way of spending a day I could not imagine. They watched in silence as we passed and only broke off from their methodical hacking to respectfully bow to my brother and Tikaro.

Further down the track as we began to curve round the edge of the forest, we came across one of the water buffalo which the farmers keep to haul their loads and cultivate the fields. It was magnificent in its ugliness and size. A great, big, hulking, black mass of solid flesh staring at us as if to query why on earth we should be there. I'm sure it would have arched an eyebrow if it had one. Had they shaved his off too? The buffalo was rooted to its spot, a rope round its thick neck and it had enormous, sweeping, scary horns. This was definitely water buffalo territory and we were there by permission only.

"Chill," said Tikaro, the first word he had uttered all morning. "They’re used to us humans an' they only charge if they're feelin' threatened."

He talked in a slow, deceptively reassuring southern drawl full of home-spun logic and I was utterly taken in by his apparent expert knowledge of the behavioural characteristics of this massive beast in front of us. I was confident he knew what he was talking about. I was fooled. We heard the shouts of the Thais working in the fields behind and swung round to be faced by a second buffalo, this one clearly feeling very threatened because it was in full charge.

At us.

And those scary horns were aimed straight at me.

We began running, robes flying, decorum flying and the hitherto chilled and silent Tikaro emitting a shriek loud enough to wake the dead from three lifetimes ago. He raced down the pathway ahead as we all heard the buffalo closing the gap behind us. We could see its rope tied to a post set deep in the ground ahead of us and we had about fifty meters before it pulled tight and yanked the buffalo to a halt. That was the theory. Sadly, in practice, the path decided to turn a sharp right angle through the paddy field and took us no further away from the lurching, snorting, thundering bulk that was now beginning to gain ground on us, chasing us through the water-filled fields. There was only one thing for it and Antony and I followed the shrieking American as he leapt into the shallow, muddy water. He was fast this guy and when this was all over, he wasn’t going to believe the Olympian feat he had accomplished. He charged through the water ahead of us as we heard the enormous splash of the buffalo following.

Tikaro dared to look round, sheer terror in his once holy face coupled with utter panic that served as high energy food for Antony and me. We ran faster through the unrelenting mud and water. Surely the rope must stop by now? I pleaded to whoever was listening. Please? God? Buddha? The Universe? Allah? Don't let this happen now! And of all the stupid things to come into my head, I thought how unfair it would be if I was to die now not having had a chance to go shopping for fakes in Bangkok.

Tears began to well in my eyes as I felt the strength begin to drain from my legs and saw Antony gain ground ahead of me, wet robes whipping against the breeze.

“You're leaving me again,” I heard my brain tell me. “You bastard, you're leaving me again when I've come all this way to see you. You ungrateful, robe-clad bastard!”

As I ran, the sting of salt burned down my cheek.

My fury and fear spurred me on and then, through the blur of my tears, I saw that Tikaro had collapsed to the floor, his dishevelled robes soaked in brown muddy water and Antony too had stopped running. I finally caught up with them, running a few feet further, for good measure. We all looked back in silence, chests craving the air, taking great gulps as we watched the buffalo which was still running. Its rope had pulled tight and forced it to make a large arc through the field. It snorted as it lunged ungainly through the water, destroying a week's crop as it went. The farmer shouted at it, waving his arms and sending it back towards the path. It may have scared the shit out of us but as far as he was concerned, the buffalo knew which side its bread was buttered and, remarkably, it quietened.

The farmer said nothing to us but looked over and gently bowed.

"The poor guy," said Tikaro, panting, his glasses splashed with muddy water. "His buffalo nearly killed two monks an' a monk's sister. That would keep his karma in overdraft for twenty lifetimes, minimum."

And we laughed with sweet relief. I pointed out to my two companions that now I knew why their robes were that browny shade of orange.

"It's the same colour as the mud."

"Well, it is now," said Antony, and we laughed stupidly until our chests hurt and we each fell back into the muddy water.

As we picked ourselves up and headed back to the monastery, our clothes drying rapidly in the heat, I reminded Antony that this wasn't the first time he'd ended upside down in a ditch.

"Your Honda Superdream?" I told him, reminding him of the time he came off his motorbike.

He laughed endearingly, my brother again, and glanced furtively at Tikaro, his dark eyes twinkling with glee. Then he began to grin like a naughty school boy. He whispered something to the American.

"We've got something to show you when we get back," they boasted like children, and Tikaro’s two front teeth gleamed as he grinned away.

"It's not strictly against the rules to keep a motorbike," explained Antony as we headed up the track. "There's a monk in Thailand who gave up everything to be ordained, his wife, his mistresses, his vast wealth, his rich lifestyle, you name it. He gave it all up to be a monk and therefore had to follow the precepts. He had to be celibate and he couldn't drink."

I could hear our father now in Antony’s voice, holding court, telling stories while our imaginations were captured. My heart leapt at the memory.

"He gave all this up to become a monk," he continued, "but couldn't bear to be parted from his one true love, his Harley Davidsons."

Tikaro at this point was nodding and grinning like a demented holy rabbit.

"It's true," he blurted out. Our earlier episode with the buffalo had obviously destroyed any continued need for shyness on his part. "There ain't no rule saying a monk can't ride no motorbike. Can't own it, but he can ride it!"

Meanwhile, Antony had started grinning like a teenage boy who'd just scored for Manchester United.

"Y'see," drawled Tikaro, enjoying his moment. "There weren't no Harley D's when the Buddha was around so there ain't no rules about it. We can't ride no elephant because that was the transport of the kings and monks can't travel in such style, but a motorbike?"

With that, Antony opened the doors of a small shed we'd reached, so tucked away in the undergrowth that you'd barely know it was there. In the darkness, chrome glistening from the sunlight that pierced through the gaps in the wooden walls, was the secret behind these two boys' smiles.

"Is this what I think it is?" I asked, disbelieving.

"It sure is," said Tikaro, beaming. " A genuine 1938 Har-ley Da-vid-son soft-tail Knuckle-head. Ain't she beautiful? Perfect like the day she was born."

It was an enormous, wire-spoked, single-seated dream of a Harley. It's wide teardrop tank had been lovingly polished. The well-worn leather saddle had been soaped and waxed and sat on giant, shiny coiled springs. The chunky, hallmark V-twin engine gleamed at the heart of this delightful machine and the ancient chrome footplates stood out boldly to the side. At the front, there was a large, proud shining headlamp and the handlebars spread like giant antlers from the head of this truly wonderful, man-made beast. The grey, solid paintwork was immaculate and the big, fat, pumped up tyres were just waiting.

"The man owned sixteen," explained Antony as he circled the bike, trailing a finger lovingly across the tank. "All different, all Harleys and he gave them all to the laypeople of the monasteries. This one came from a temple about fifty miles from here. Christopher brought it with him."

I caught Antony's eye as we each recognised the old, familiar joy of anticipation. The American looked at us both and grinned, even wider, even more teeth. All of us knew what was coming next.

Antony was the first on the bike, robes billowing, engine growling like an oil-fired symphony. The bike went like a dream, a rattling dream but a rattlingly good one and the countryside reverberated to an old, familiar sound that we’d each learned to love.

Shake, rattle and roll, chocolate and Mozart. The sound of a Harley.

"Why God invented metal," Tikaro quoted in a love-struck daze as we watched James Dean in an orange robe sail through the dust, waiting for our turn to ride the dream machine.

It was as sublime as it was surreal. An hour spent with Buddhist monks cruising illicitly through golden dust and dirt on a sunny morning in the hazy north-eastern tip of Thailand.


*****